


anyone else

by ferim



Series: (over and over) [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee Shops, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26663641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferim/pseuds/ferim
Summary: “it’s a love story. we make do with what we have.”with his flight delayed, felix listens to a stranger's tale.for sylvix week 2020 (reincarnations)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: (over and over) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1932850
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	anyone else

**Author's Note:**

> this is loosely based on the manga memories of emanon. it's based on a novel with the same name and the manga is pretty vague with its depictions of the narrator's monologues. the art was fun to read through
> 
> also...... i've come to realize that all of these are just.. parts of a bigger whole to some universe that i cant just be bothered to write more about lmao

“How about a story?”

Felix looks up from his coffee, and he sees the stranger grinning from his side of the table.

“You look like you’d be interested,” the man tells him. “And as thanks for helping me with my passport.”

Felix didn’t really do much. All he did was give back a fallen passport. What he didn’t expect was for this stranger to latch onto him during their wait, which unfortunately prolonged due to a flight delay. Despite how befogged his mind is due to lack of sleep (and why he chose to take a red eye he’ll never know), he thinks this person is far too friendly for someone he’s just met.

“I’m not interested in some stranger’s story.”

The man, annoying as he is, even feigns hurt at Felix’s words. The hand on his heart looks exaggerated.

“I already told you my name’s Sylvain.” Sylvain lifts his own glass, some sort of sugary concoction with its blue color and decorated straw, and takes a long sip before tilting it towards Felix. “You’re the one who hasn’t said his name.”

“Why should I?” There’s no need for him to tell anything to this man, no matter how persistent he is. He doesn’t say anything about how he’s made little attempts to stop the advances. Handsome people really do utilize their looks.

“Tell you what.” Sylvain puts down his glass, empty save for some pieces of fruit. “If you like my story enough, how about you tell me?”

“And what makes you think I’d be interested?”

“It’s kinda like science fiction.” Sylvain raises a hand to call a server, and before one could approach their table, his cheeky grin is back for Felix to see. “You like that stuff, don’t you? Saw you reading those.”

The server prevents Felix from saying that he’s not. He’s not fond of science fiction. He’s not fond of reading in general. The books he carries are merely memories of friends that used to recommend them to him, those that he would brush off because he also hated reading even back then. Now, with them long gone, he skims over some of what he’s collected to pass the time.

Sylvain orders a different drink but also asks for more coffee. The server looks exhausted as she retrieves their empty cups, and Felix can’t even blame her. Coincidentally, both he and Sylvain are catching the same flight but delayed due to a storm. It’s terrible to wait it out here in some airport cafe with dozens of passengers in similar levels of exhaustion, but the server probably has these kinds of experiences more often than most as someone working here.

Sylvain doesn’t even try to butter up to the server, only smiles gratefully as she leaves. He turns to Felix once he’s able.

“How about it? Beats whatever you’re reading there.”

Felix doesn’t like most of the books he’s collected, but some part of him still feels the need to defend Ashe’s dignity. “They’re still more interesting than whatever drivel you’ll come up with.”

“It’s science fiction!” Sylvain says it like it’s enough. “And it’s special.”

“How so?”

“It’s a love story.” Goddess, the grin. It annoys Felix so much, the familiarity of it irritates him. They’ve only just met. “You’ll like it.”

“Do I look like the type who’d like love stories?”

Somehow this makes Sylvain laugh, and he laughs long enough for the server to provide Felix his coffee. He ignores the burn when he drinks half of it down in one go.

“You don’t, but you’ll like it anyway.” It’s annoying how happy this stranger is to him, here in this airport in the middle of nowhere, waiting for a flight that will take him home. “I swear it.”

Perhaps it’s Sylvain’s persistence that wears him out. Perhaps it’s the idea that he might be convinced to like some love story that interests him. Perhaps it’s the sheer exhaustion of waiting longer for the trip home. Perhaps it’s the look Sylvain keeps giving him, something fond that Felix feels he shouldn’t see.

“Fine,” he eventually says. “But if it’s bad you’re paying for all my drinks.”

“Deal.” Sylvain smile widens, teeth full on display, and he raises his hand again to beckon another server. “But first let’s get some food.”

Their order of sweet and spicy whitefish arrives when Sylvain starts talking.

“You don’t have to believe it unless you want to.” He begins as if describing a biography, and Felix hums in acknowledgment to let him continue. He starts eating his fish.

“It’s about living forever, stuff like that.”

“Sounds original.” The piece of the fish he’s just cut gets taken from him in response. He would’ve retaliated if Sylvain hadn’t given him a bigger piece, teasing him all the way. The peace offering, for now, is accepted.

“You know how they said life’s existed for billions of years?” Felix nods while eating.

“So imagine a being that’s been alive ever since then. It’s a pretty lonely existence, and they think so too.”

The server arrives to refill their water, and Sylvain nods, smiling in thanks. Felix doesn’t comment on how Sylvain only continues when they’re left alone once more. Well, as alone as they’ll ever be with other passengers in their tables.

“That being’s been here since the beginning of time, and they don’t know why but they still remember it.” A pause. Sylvain takes a bite from his own plate. “They remember everything since they started existing.”

“Like what, an immortal?” Felix can’t help but ask, grabbing his glass of water. There’s ice now thanks to the server. “Sounds more like fantasy.”

“But they’re not.” Sylvain mimics his action, drinking half of his glass. “They just remember.”

Felix thinks he’s made a strange face because Sylvain grins at him and eats more from his plate.

“They remember everything since they first existed. It’s in their genes or something. They keep existing again and again and every single time they remember each past self.”

Reincarnation then. Felix doesn’t like that. He doesn’t say anything.

“So this being has lived since the beginning of time, and they remember everything and all forms they took until they evolved into humans.” Yes, Felix really doesn’t like reincarnation stories. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and he hates that it’s souring his meal.

He keeps listening though, keeps eating.

“They live long enough to be humans and they think it’s not so different from before only that it’s easier to communicate. But that’s when the being starts to have a problem.”

“What problem?” Felix ignores the grin directed at him.

“They learn to communicate better with others, and it made them know more about humans that look the same as them.”

“So they learn?”

“They learn,” Sylvain agrees. “And it becomes a problem.”

Right, what was it again? The thing that Felix heard him say? The other genre that this was supposed to be? Felix dreads what’s coming, and he hates Sylvain smiling like he knows what Felix is fearing. How would he know? They just met. He shouldn’t be aware of Felix’s minuscule shows of emotions so quickly.

The grin is too annoying, so Felix turns back to his food. He takes a huge bite when he hears Sylvain snicker.

“Yes, yes, the being encounters the most typical of human problems.” The hand on his heart is back, and it’s still irritating. “The being falls in love.”

Felix is about ready to gag.

He’s stopped from leaving the table entirely when Sylvain plops most of his fish to Felix’s plate. Felix stares at it, far longer than he should, and begrudgingly accepts this new peace offering.

“They meet someone and they fall in love. The being is happy.” He won’t be soon, Felix thinks, because this story contains reincarnations and those never end well when loving someone unlike them.

He doesn’t know if Sylvain is aware of his thoughts, and he continues his story without a second thought. Felix doesn’t know if Sylvain’s choosing to ignore his disbelief or he simply doesn’t notice it. “That being has known so much of life since it first happened on this earth, so it’s a bit strange for them at first. They have memories up to billions of years and most of what they’ve felt for people is the same whether they’ve known them for a few hours or a few decades.”

It’s all the same. All is the same when every moment has become only a short passage of time. How can a decade be compared to a billion years? Felix understands that clearly.

“This is different?” Felix can’t help but speak up after another bite. Sylvain’s no longer eating, choosing to look towards the window with planes arriving and departing. Most of his food has now ended up on Felix’s plate. Sylvain doesn’t look at him, and the window reflects his smile.

“Yeah, it is.”

Felix would think it’s a rare moment of his solemnity even if he’s just met Sylvain, but the latter smirks that same asshole smile and Felix takes it back.

“I mean, they fuck so it was even better.”

The server arrives to refill their glass again, a tired excuse me coming out of their lips, and Felix loses the chance to stab Sylvain with his fork.

“But of course the being knows they won’t have a lot of time together.” The server’s left. It’s annoying how Sylvain continues like Felix wasn’t close to breaking the law right there in the airport cafe. “The being knows their time is up.”

“Because their lover is a normal human.” Felix doesn’t phrase it like a question, but Sylvain responds like it is.

“Not really,” he waves it off easily. “He knows that they can reunite again, but since he evolves by passing from generation to generation, he wasn’t sure if he could find them.”

Find them? How strange for him to say unless the lover has something special too.

Ah, that’s the thing, isn’t it?

They’re special too.

“Oh,” it’s all Felix can say towards the same irritating smile. Sylvain looks too smug about himself. Felix is too tired for this. They’ve known each other just a few hours ago yet he’s made multiple ways to already get under Felix’s skin.

He grits his teeth when he asks. “So their lover was also the same as them?”

If Sylvain could give him a star, he probably would’ve. He looks like a teacher whose student just got a perfect score, nods the same way too.

“I never said that the being was the only one like that, did I?”

Fair, but Felix still glares at him anyway.

“The being didn’t find out until later, but it looks like their lover was also the same. But they still had the same problem: they don’t know if they’ll be able to reunite again after so long.”

Felix waits for him to continue, but Sylvain chooses this as a perfect opportunity to drink half his glass slowly. The cool water keeps getting finished far too fast, and Felix wonders if it’s to level out the sugar intake from those drinks earlier.

He waits until Sylvain finishes. And he waits until he speaks.

“And there’s that,” Sylvain mutters. “They died without knowing if they’ll be reunited and ended up reincarnating again while knowing that.”

What?

“Is that it?” Felix doesn’t bother hiding his discontent. Sylvain holds his hands up in a form of surrender, probably worried the server won’t be here to save him this time.

“Well, yeah in that life anyway. They change every time they live again so it took a few times but they found each other.”

“Again?”

“Again,” Sylvain nods. “Again and again and again. Not always, but they try.”

Felix narrows his eyes. “Because they don’t look the same.”

“Not at all. Their names and faces change every time.”

That’s — that’s not exactly reassuring. No matter the feeling they have for each other, it wouldn’t be surprising to constantly miss the other. Felix looks at their empty plates, at the coffee he never finished in favor of their meal. He thinks about that concept. Given that uncertainty, it wouldn’t be surprising if one of them gave up in their search.

Another part of him, the one exasperated by all this, knows that it also wouldn’t be surprising if tenacity is heightened the more these beings search.

Felix is the one that raises his hand this time and the server arrives to clear their table and to take his new order of coffee.

Sylvain orders pie.

“How was it?”

Sylvain shouldn’t speak when there’s apple pie still in his mouth. Felix grimaces at the openly chewing mouth for so long that it gets Sylvain to finish first before asking again.

“How was it?” Felix still doesn’t bother to hide his disgust, not even when Sylvain no longer has food in his mouth.

“It was uncommon.” He wasn’t particularly interested, Felix tells himself, but, interestingly, it’s a bit far from the usual stories of reincarnation. Sylvain looks disappointed at his comment.

“That’s it? It was a good story!” He takes another bite of his pie, and Felix looks away to avoid seeing another chewed apple. “A love story about two beings that still choose to meet again even with all those memories and knowledge.”

“It doesn’t really sound like one.” Not when the love story ends with such ambiguity, not when there’s always the idea of those two characters realizing that what they feel is what they’ve felt for everyone else. Not when another continuation of that story is them no longer trying.

The coffee burns when he drinks it, and Felix ignores the gaze in front of him.

“You sure?” Annoying as he is, Sylvain grins once Felix turns his attention to him. “It’s some special kind of love that has no limits.”

“Would they really choose to meet again when they can meet someone else?”

“I didn’t.”

It’s the same cheeky grin when Felix looks right at Sylvain, further into what he sees in Sylvain. Same annoying smile. Same stranger’s handsome face.

“I didn’t, nah.” One last bite of the pie and it’s empty. He points his fork at Felix, head leaning on one hand. Same annoying, irritating, exasperating smile. “Did you?”

Felix has been glaring since Sylvain started defending his story. He’s still glaring although for different reasons. The first was disgust but now most stem from his exasperation. He lifts his cup to drink the rest of his coffee.

“Sylvain.”

“Yes?” The response is immediate.

It is incredibly frustrating, Felix thinks, that Sylvain found him first this time before he even realized it.

“I haven’t seen you use that name in a while.”

And it’s impressive how the effect is immediate as if given complete permission. Felix feels Sylvain’s ankle on his, and Sylvain keeps up his position with his head on his hand. He looks happier.

“I got red hair again,” he tells Felix. “And I like that time with you.”

“We were at war.”

“I still liked it. Longest we’ve been together.”

They were childhood friends at that time, weren’t they?

“Your hair’s the same as that time too, like when we got older.” True, Felix always had his hair tied back then. He does the same thing now. He is still the same now.

“Does that mean I don’t need to guess what your name is?”

The look Felix gives him is enough because Sylvain laughs.

“Aren’t you glad this random person suddenly started talking to you?”

“No.” Felix doesn’t hesitate with his answer, because Sylvain was still annoying even when Felix didn’t have it figured out yet. Like now with Sylvain’s pout and his way of acting like a kicked puppy.

He’s always been good at easing out emotions from people. Years of observing human behavior have taught him a lot. Felix is similar, but he’s more inclined to utilizing skills in battle. There’s not much of that nowadays, but he likes those memories regardless of the bloodshed.

Still, the kicked puppy look is annoying and Felix is weak, no matter the face. “You should stop being so annoying when you feel like you know it’s me.”

Sylvain has been very good at finding Felix first whenever they have the chance. The smirk on his face makes Felix think he isn’t going to stop now, not in the next life or the one after that.

“Well, I gotta make sure we have a happy ending.” This is the happiest they can get after all, whenever it is that they meet again. “It’s a love story. We make do with what we have.”

And it’s so cheesy, how it is all that they have. Love felt for others is the same no matter how long Felix has spent with them. Billions of years of existence weigh so heavily in their minds that most have been viewed as quick and equal, as simple and just one more memory to remember. Yet it’s not the same, not with Sylvain.

The way they still do try to find each other says enough about that.

“It’s good to see you again, Felix.” Sylvain puts his hand down on the table, something Felix is familiar with when it comes to the other asking for affection.

There’s still the flight in some hours, the new home he has there that he’s living. It’s all a new life, and Felix wonders how Sylvain will fit himself in it this time around.

He puts his hand over Sylvain’s, squeezing it once and letting go. Sylvain’s leg presses closer to his.

“Good to see you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> here's a fun fact: the line in the summary is what i wanted to use for the series name. but things happened so here we are with a song from frank sinatra instead


End file.
